Justine
by lemonn
Summary: One-shot. John comes home from a hard day at work, expecting an empty flat which he can rant and rage in - but Sherlock is there, and wants to find out what's the matter with John.


"I actually don't know what to do now," John announced to the empty flat, as he stepped through the door, hands tight in his pocket, eyes raw, breath shallow, empty and at loss.

"About what?" the flat replied.

John looked left and right. The voice was undoubtedly Sherlock's. Sherlock, who was meant to be in Devon. Either he had installed some sort of intelligent voice system, or... Ah. Sherlock was lounged magnificently across the sofa. His limbs seemed to have grown since he was gone, spread across the cushions in ways that were surely uncomfortable, the dressing gown that Mrs. Hudson had ironed already creased.

"So about what?" said Sherlock again.

"Um..."

"'I actually don't know what to do now'... that Sherlock isn't here, perhaps?" asked Sherlock. "Which I am. If you hadn't noticed."

"Of course I-"

"I sometimes forget the exact limits of the ordinary mind...Did I underestimate that time?"

"Er, yes- Actually- you not being here gives me the ability to lead a normal life with friends so I had plenty to do. _Why_ are you here?"

"Solved the case even earlier than I expected," said Sherlock, raising his eyebrows as if to say (or warn) _I'm even more arrogant now_.

"Could have told me you were coming back early..."

"And could have not. Didn't see why it mattered. So why were you announcing to the flat that you 'actually don't know what to do now'?"

John sat down on the nearest chair, and stared blankly at his knuckles. "Since when do you care?"

"I can stop it, if you like. It does feel odd."

"Well, you picked a bad time to start because it really is none of your business."

Sherlock flicked his gaze to John, surprised by the sharp tone. The gaze he used in crime scenes, puzzles, Mycroft. He looked away. "You're not going to tell me..."

"No."

"Then I'll find out."

John shook his head and grimaced. "No you won't. You can't help with this, Sherlock. You'll only make it worse. This is not a puzzle you can solve."

John shrugged at Sherlock's silence, assuming that was as much searching as Sherlock could be bothered to perform and trudged to the bedroom, before collapsing fully-clothed onto the bed.

He didn't hear Sherlock murmur "I can try."

The next few days passed like that. John slipping in and out of consciousness, occasionally making toast whichever state he was in and then curling up on his bed again. Sherlock was mainly preoccupied with a case, while not commenting on how the flat had gotten even messier than usual.

"I thought you didn't mind the mess, Sherlock."

"I don't mind _my_ mess."

It was the third day of John missing work that he almost slipped over on a bowl while getting out of bed. A plate full of cereal, on the floor, exactly where his feet would land. He rinsed his sopping wet feet in the shower, while cursing Sherlock's thoughtlessness. When he reached the bedroom again, he saw a stack of wet papers where the bowl had spilt. He picked them up. Smudged and unreadable.

"Sherlock? Are these yours? Because it's not my fault they're wet!"

Apparently Sherlock was out.

John climbed back into bed, barely aware of the time of day. It wasn't relevant. Doing things sucked his energy. Life was not an option at the moment. The duvet was soft, and he slipped away, fearless and forgetful for once. Usually he met sleep with trepidation (_usually? Since when had this lifestyle become his usual?) _but the charm of sleep made him forget the danger of his brain.

The first time he met her, freckles large, almost filling her whole face, her talking about the problem with her headaches and sickness, him shaking his head. Hardly worth coming to the GP for...

And then her head opening up, her skull cracking, her ginger hair falling, eyes parting, blinking back tears even as they fell away and her hands clenching, splodged nail varnish of an early teen hidden in her knuckles, parents kneeling in the corner, surrounded by ripped photos of her, and photos of lab reports, photos of her MRI, photos of the large tumour in the meninges in her brain...

Justine in a hospital bed, barely aware of her sickness, parents smiling about how she barely needed oxygen today and then turning away and sucking back the tears from their eyes before, later in the day, dad putting on her oxygen again and her smiling at him, putting her hands on his though she could barely see it through her half-blind eyes, comforting him even though she was the dying one, but once she was gone, she kept saying, it was hardly her tragedy, they would carry her on through life in their pain...

She was going to die...

And she knew it. They knew it. John knew it.

But none of them said it.

"John? John, can you hear me?"

John sits up in bed, and there are hands on his chest all of a sudden, scrunching his pyjama top, pushing him back down.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh Christ!" said John, when he realised who was holding him, and struggled more. "Sherlock. Get a- Get away from me!"

Sherlock's confused face, frown sharpening his blue eyes into something worth stopping for, were simply a blur as John pushed himself away from Sherlock and into the pillows. Sherlock stood from his crouching position, backing away as if weary. He paused at the door.

"But I want to do something."

John was all of a sudden sitting up leaning forward and shouting.

"God! It would be so much easier if you weren't here! I thought that this whole thing was fucking fantastic timing with you gone! But no... You know I stepped in that bowl of cereal you stupidly left the morning?"

"I-"

"I can barely think, barely grieve, with you here. I thought," John squeezes his eyes tight shut, "that when I got back from that fucking hospital that you would be gone, I would be free from prying eyes, I could deal with it myself and you would come back with me as_ me_ again... so there would be no prying questions, so you could just...we could just... be..."

_Normal_, like they were ever normal.

Sherlock stayed calm. "You're lashing out in a self-defence."

"No, I'm not! I just... you can't help with this, Sherlock." John took a deep breath. "Sorry for lashing out...but you're just making it worse. Just leave."

"I heard her name," said Sherlock quietly. "Justine Marten. French?"

"Sherlock... Just go..."

"French?"

"You know she was."

"Yes, Avignon. Moved here three years ago. Her father is a nurse, her mother works at The Tate."

"Worked," said John tiredly, defeated.

"Yes," says Sherlock, fully aware of his mistake - given he had intended it. "Both of them now. _Worked_. How are they getting money? To feed the new baby?"

"I...don't know." John looked up, fully meeting Sherlock's eyes for the first time since he had woken up. "Sherlock - how do you even know this much?"

Sherlock didn't answer. Pointless question. This was Sherlock that John was talking about.

Instead, Sherlock said, "you know this wasn't your fault, John".

Sherlock sat down on the chair next to the bed, in a way that told John that there was no point asking him to move: he was not going to oblige. John didn't acknowledge Sherlock's comment.

Sleep came again, without John even inviting it. The parents, clutching each other's hands, the mother pregnant, _can she replace Justine? Can she?, it's not a matter of replacement _he says _not a matter of replacement_, and then they turn and nod, before Justine in the corner of the room, back to her healthy self, comes out of the darkness...

"John..."

_Blame him_, she says, pointing at John. _Blame the damaged doctor._ _Blame John_

_You didn't notice what the headaches meant.._

_The sickness..._

"John!"

_You only did when I went blind, but there were no chances left._

Retching, and clawing, as if emerging from a lake, sopping wet with sweat, disorientation, bright lights and blurred shapes, the overwhelming urge to run and a voice, a soft voice, in his ear.

"John, John, John, John... Breathe."

Gasping.

"John?"

Choking.

"John!"

"I need... Water," John murmured.

"Um, water. Yes."

There were a few moments, where John was left bent over on the bed, hands holding onto the sheets because they were there, eyes closed and head pounding too much to make sense of anything.

"God," said John, as a cold glass of water was shoved in his hand. "It feels like my heart is going to..."

"What?"

Hands on his shoulders, firm, so the water shook slightly onto the bed.

"No it's okay... Just a... Just a..."

John closed his eyes, tipped his head back and drunk deeply.

"Panic attack," said Sherlock quietly.

John gasped as he finished the glass, and put it on the bed in front of him, breathing slowing down.

"Are you okay now?"

John looked at Sherlock. "Yes."

"Why did she matter so much to you?"

"Please, Sherlock..."

John just closed his eyes.

"She reminded you of a girl who died. In Afghanistan. The one you told me about."

_A girl is wheeled in, green and red and groaning and rolling, a contrast on white sheets. John snaps on gloves, imagining Harry dying away from home in the hands of a stranger. Orders are barked; assurances are whispered; she cannot die._

"Yes, Sherlock."

"She died too," adds Sherlock. "And you thought that was your fault too."

John doesn't answer that.

"I don't understand why she died."

"Justine? Brain tumour. It metastasised. I got there too late. I should have-"

"Not the science of it!" Sherlock takes out a pile of papers from his pocket, looking at the printed writing. "She was top of her class, a little lacking in sports," he smirks slightly. "Mycroft, really, but younger-"

"Um, she was nothing like Mycroft."

"No I suppose not." Sherlock tilts his head. "Average looking, but not in some ways. It's rare to have brown eyes and red hair. She defied genetic linkage. She defied statistics. Defied likelihood."

John was not used to being the one who talks logically. "Well someone had to."

"Yes, but it was her. Why did _she _have to die?"

"It's not like crime. Justice doesn't work on patients. I... made a mistake. "

"No," says Sherlock, shaking his head and staring at the paper again. "You made all the right decisions, given the facts you had."

"Wait a minute...where did you get that from?"

"It's the Universe that's unfair."

"The logo at the top... It matches..." John leant over and grabbed a grotty pile of paper from under his bed. "It matches... this. Sherlock... did you?"

Sherlock looks up. It's the pile of paper than John had spilt cereal on.

"You left me this..." continued John, "with a bowl of cereal?"

"The cereal was to counteract your over-eating of toast."

"Right...And this?"

"It's about her."

"Why?"

Sherlock looked down at his own copy again. "It's a fact-file about her. I thought you'd read it, but I see you decided to spill cereal on it instead."

"I already know about her..."

Sherlock shook is head. "The art of knowing is knowing what to know. And you do not know the important things about the death of Justine Gamon."

John sat back in his bed, and stared at Sherlock.

"The Guardian interviewed her mother," continued Sherlock, "complete with a ghostly picture of her swing in their garden, which is now rusted, showing the decay her family is going through. A stupid metaphor. Justine was fifteen. Judging by her fondness for alcohol-"

"How do you...? You didn't dig up her phone did you?"

Sherlock ignored him. "It was probably rusted since she turned twelve," he said, "rather than a direct consequence of her death-"

"Anyway..."

"Yes," Sherlock glanced at the article again. "Martine Gamon," he read, "maintains that her daughter's death was not fault of their GP, despite the fact it could have been avoided with an earlier diagnosis. 'Dr. Watson', Mrs. Gamon said, 'is the kindest, most available doctor we've ever had. Justine gained, rather than lost, in meeting him. It's a fault of medical science that Justine was not diagnosed earlier, and to blame John would be a betrayal to what he did for our family – and to what, if we phone, he promises to continue to do.'"

The first thing John says is "they haven't phoned".

"It was an if," said Sherlock, closing the paper.

"Thank you, Sherlock," said John, tipping his head back on the pillow and closing his eyes. Suddenly, John sat up. "I know what I want to do now."

"Go back to work?"

John didn't answer, simply picked up his bag and started packing papers, notes and the printed off article about Justine Gamon.


End file.
